This was the plan: Go to yoga teacher training on Friday night and learn modifications for sun salutations (that happened). Go to Global Mala at the Vulcan on Saturday morning and help demo/lead modified sun salutations, hang out with all my yogi friends, take pictures, have fun. Go to teacher training, give my presentation, practice teach and whatever else was planned.

Friday went as planned. It was really a great evening of learning and practicing ways to modify sun salutations. We went through several variations/modifications on the floor, from kneeling and with a chair. There are ways to make this work for anyone.

Saturday morning I got up early. I was staying with a friend, didn’t turn the light on to go downstairs, missed a step and went down about 20 stairs head first. I landed on my face and left arm. It was shocking and terrifying for me and for her and her husband. So, no Global Mala for us. Instead we headed to the emergency room. I was very fortunate to wind up with only a sprained wrist, bruises and a gash in my lip. There are more bruises and aches appearing but nothing broke. It could have been so much worse and I can’t even really think about or write the possibilities.

We made two trips to emergency to get everything addressed. Then we had pancake therapy at IHop because pancakes can cure things.

After some debate, we did head to teacher training for the afternoon. I wasn’t sure how it would go. When we arrived I was immediately surrounded by loving friends. It turned out that I didn’t last long though because of the pain. I am so fortunate in this training to have wonderful friends – and the bonus that many are nurses and PT’s. The nurses surrounded me, propped me on a massage table and made sure I rested. Later in the afternoon I called on another friend who is one of my other teachers to come and do a Reiki session. It was the best thing I could have done, I think, because the Reiki pulled out much of the trauma. Instead of continuing to visualize falling down the stairs, I had dreams about canceling journals. (Only librarians will understand that is a different kind of trauma.) The friends I was staying with took wonderful care of me Saturday evening. I appreciate them so very much.

Sunday brought some new pains and bruises, as I was expecting but the morning was spent in yoga nidra, one of my favorite practices. I experienced a deep rest. In the afternoon I was able to give my presentation on yoga and diabetes and practice teach, which I missed doing on Saturday. It all went well, I think.

Sometimes I analyze too much. I’ve thought this weekend about why this happened and why now? I have been totally exhausted for a few weeks. I’ve had a trip to the west coast, a lot going on at work, my house sold and I have had many things going on that are associated with moving. I’ve slept through multiple alarms – very unlike me. I can sleep through one alarm but rarely do I recall sleeping through multiple alarms. If a friend had not called me on Friday afternoon, I probably would not have woken up to even get to training on Friday evening. So my body has been trying to tell me to stop but I have kept going. Was this a way to make me stop? I don’t know for sure. It will though. I will have to change my routine for a few weeks and figure out how to get moved this week. I have to cancel a trip I had planned for next week. I will have to rest to recover from this fall. I think it was also a message to take better care of myself because I have neglected some basic things lately. I could go over a lot of “if only I had’s…” but that won’t change what happened or do any good so I will listen to my body and adjust what needs to change.

I didn’t name the people who have surrounded me this weekend, both in Birmingham and from a far. I appreciate each and every one of you. I am not neglecting to name you on purpose but decided that I didn’t want to begin naming people and miss someone. I love all of you for your care and compassion. Thank you so very much.

Yesterday I received an email reminding me that I began going to Bala Yoga two years ago. Ah, social media and apps. We can be reminded of everything. I am not going to make it Bala Yoga on this trip to Seattle but it made me stop and think about how much has changed since I took the step to walk into a yoga studio again.

Although I had continued a practice on my own, I had not stepped into a studio in years. Michaela Martin was the first teacher I met and she could not have been kinder to someone uninitiated in heated power vinyasa – at 6:15 am. I had my 15 year old mat with me and slid across the floor because it no longer had any stick left to it. It was quite an hour. If I had not been treated so kindly I likely never would have returned. But I did return several times during the next two weeks and have several times over the past two years. I met Pam Chang who became one of my teachers and who I am so grateful to know as well as other teachers. The experience led me to a new path I never could have imagined. I am grateful.

Of course, the decision to return to the yoga studio has changed my life in so many ways. I continued to seek out yoga studios and classes when I returned home and as I traveled. I met my teachers Kim Drye and Melissa Scott (and later Becca Impello). I met other strong inspiring women in studios around the country – Chrissy Carter, Jillian Pransky, Anna McLawhorn, and Liz Stewart to name a few. People have taken a chance on me and allowed me to teach in my first year after teacher training – thank you especially to Annie Damsky, Krista Young, and Anna McLawhorn. I have also explored many styles of yoga and have been fortunate enough to train in a number of styles in a short time.

So many opportunities have opened up since I decided to return to yoga. I am part of a community full of wise, funny, compassionate teachers. I continue to teach restorative yoga. I am planning new classes and workshops that will be posted this fall and in the coming year. I can’t predict what will come but I am open and excited to see what will appear.

I just finished month six of yoga training. Yesterday ended with a full rainbow over the city. It was what I needed after a challenging weekend. Yoga teacher training can bring up a lot of stuff and there are often things to face that are difficult and feel impossible. As I looked back at month six from last year, which also seemed to have some challenges, I was reminded of what Melissa told us, “you are stronger than you think you are.” I realized that I am stronger than I think I am and the challenges help me grow as a teacher and in my practice.

This weekend’s impossible was another set of inversions. I will never do inversions because they are not worth it to me. I’ve tried in the past, done them, and then my sight was comprised. Fortunately it has cleared up each time but standing on my head is not as important to me as seeing is. There are steps and preparations for inversions that do not take you fully upside down, however. They can still be a challenge and this weekend challenged me quite a bit because my knee felt like I had a knife driving in it most of Friday and Saturday. I’m not sure what the issue was since I hadn’t done anything. It may have been weather related. I’m not sure. But it made it nearly impossible to do anything which was quite frustrating.

Figuring out how to deal with the pain, even when I don’t do it well, will make me a better teacher. If I can understand my own pain, how to address it, when to push and when to modify, then hopefully I will be better equipped to help students who face pain. I tend to be able to tolerate pain but over the past year I have noticed that I am a bit more cautious than I used to be. I try to figure out the edges and where to stop instead of trying to push more and ignore it. I have figured out some ways that I can make adjustments and ways to modify practices but those don’t always work. It takes time and experimentation.

I thought about modifications and accessibility quite a bit this weekend. There are many ways to teach and to practice that are still beneficial and can help people with various chronic conditions. A short encounter in the elevator reinforced my passion and purpose in this practice. When I was leaving the hotel on Sunday, a man entered the elevator with a large bag of ice in a ziploc bag. My thought to myself was that it would feel good on my knee. He saw me glancing at it and said, “Insulin. You have to keep it cold.” I acknowledged that I knew about insulin and we exchanged a few more remarks about type 2 diabetes. He ended by telling me how much he hates the black marks from the needles. It was only a few minutes but took me back to my reason for beginning my health degree, for continuing to fight my own battle, and for pursuing my yoga training and other trainings. I want to work with people who face challenges, who think they can’t because that is what they are often told and come to believe. There is hope and it comes in small steps and brief moments. I hope that I can share that with others.

I generally begin my Saturday mornings at the Tuscaloosa River Market. The photo shows some of what I found last Saturday. Vegetables came from a number of farmers (and a couple of things from the grocery store). My biggest challenge is not usually buying produce – it’s prepping the produce and cooking. While I love to cook, sometimes it feels a little too much to prepare everything. (That small green squash in the middle had already been in the refrigerator at least a week.) Enter my friend, Mary, who said, “let’s get together and prep food for the week.” We had a great morning of cutting, roasting and prepping so by Saturday afternoon, the vegetables looked like the second photo. I have cut up vegetables, spiralized vegetables, and chopped vegetables ready for the week. I have no excuse not to eat well this week.

At home I took a selection of vegetables, a can of kidney beans since I didn’t have black beans, and some vegetable stock and made soup for the week.

I know that I have written about this topic on a number of occasions but prepping food really is a key, in my opinion, to being able to eat well. I am avoiding writing “eat right” because there is not one right way to eat. I believe that there are foods/ingredients to avoid but there are times when that is difficult. I prefer a plant based diet but I know there are times when I may not be able to eat exactly as I prefer. I do the best that I can on any given day. Today I have my soup, part of a leftover salad and some fruit. All in all I am happy with the outcome.

August 10, 2016. I posted this last year and I think the questions are still good. If you are considering yoga teacher training in 2017, then it is time to begin thinking about. Yes, now. HereNow Yoga, Melissa Scott and Birmingham Yoga have all recently held information sessions for their next rounds of 200 hour training. I will finish my second 200 hour training in a few months. My trainings have focused on different aspects of yoga but both have been good and have made me a better teacher.

from last August

I’ve been thinking about writing a post about choosing yoga teacher training for a while. I’m not sure if I have any great advice but I’ll give it a shot. I was reminded about this again today because I saw another one of those articles about churning out yoga teachers. There are lots of programs that are graduating lots of 200 hour certified yoga teachers. All programs are not the same and all graduates are not the same. That can be said about many kinds of trainings and programs, however. I think there are a few questions that I would advise anyone thinking about yoga teacher training to consider.

Why are you doing this? This is one of my coaches favorite questions for me when I talk about training, racing or many other things. Why are you signing up for a yoga teacher training? Do you want to teach? Do you want to improve your own practice? Do you want to learn about a different style of yoga? I think it is important to know why you want to do a training because it really is a major commitment of time and money. It often requires several weekends over the course of a year and it is tiring. The reason may change once you are in the training and that is perfectly fine. In fact, expect your reasons to change. I began with several women who said they would never teach. I think most of them are teaching or want to do so.

What kind of training are you looking for? There are different kinds of trainings. Trainings vary by length – intensive trainings are daily over a short time while other training programs are once a month for a weekend and may include an intensive at some point. Also, think about the kind of yoga you want to study and teach. There may not be a training in your area for that kind of yoga. I completed a 200 hour training in Core Strength Vinyasa with Melissa Scott. It was not the kind of yoga that I had practiced for years and I started out saying that I would never do it or teach it. That changed over the course of the training but I probably should have taken some CSV classes before I began the training.

Have you connected with the teacher? I think it is important to meet the person you are going to work with for an extended period of time. Though I did not have an opportunity to take a class from Melissa before I started training, I did go to an introductory session about the training and I traded some emails with her before I applied. I also talked to my teacher about the training and about Melissa since they are friends. When I met Melissa I knew I wanted to work with her.

Do you have a yoga practice? What is your practice like now? Are you ready to increase that practice and see it change, because it will.

These are just a few questions to think about. You can find a lot of articles about how to evaluate yoga teacher training programs and what to consider if you search the web. You will find online training, in person training, intensive training, and training that meets over a long period of time. Trainings vary in the amount of reading and writing that is required – yes, we read a number of books and wrote papers. Some trainings require written exams at the end. Teaching is part of training as well. Trainings also often include observing other yoga teachers and taking classes at other studios or places you might not normally take classes. Many training are registered through Yoga Alliance so you can register with them when you finish.

There are now five yoga teacher training choices around the Birmingham area: Melissa Scott’s 200 hour Core Strength Vinyasa training begins again in March. Kim Drye and Becca Impello are offering HereNow Yoga teacher training for the first time this March. It is an alignment based training and this year is sold out. Birmingham Yoga offers Ashtanga and Kundalini Yoga teacher training. LifeTime Yoga offers a 200 hour and 300 hour training led by Lauren Lippeatt. Finally, Kiva Yoga offers a hot yoga teacher training. You can see we have a wide range to choose from in the Birmingham area.

The best thing about yoga teacher training is the close bonds that are created with your fellow trainees. I have a wonderful group of friends who I most likely would not have met any other way. That made training worth every minute.

I was around 10-12 the first time I was observed clearing out a house full of someone else’s belongings. My grandmother died and my cousins and I were taken along for the week long venture of dividing and distributing her things. We didn’t truly clear out that house because my aunt and uncle continued to live in it for many years but we had to clean out a lot of things that had been in the house for decades. Mostly I watched. And wondered why some of my relatives were taking so much stuff back to houses that already had a lot of stuff in them already. My mom wound up with the amber cake plate that was used for birthday cakes. It traveled from my grandmother’s house, to my mom, to my sister, to me, back to my sister, and now to my niece over the years. This was one item that was meant to be kept.

Throughout my childhood I watched my mother sort boxes. It was something she did in the evenings and when she could not sleep. There were boxes and boxes of letters and papers in our house. It was only when she knew for certain that she was dying that she began to throw things out that she did not want any of us to read. The house was filled with magazines, dishes, more linens than three families could use, and dead appliances. My dad never let a toaster, frying pan, electric anything leave the house because he knew he could fix it. I threw out a lot of dead appliances when we cleaned out the family home. I also carried a lot of things with me to new homes – dishes, teapots, some of the linens that had been left, photos, papers and furniture.

Over the years I have either had to clean out houses or have helped other relatives clean out houses. It is always a big task that takes a great deal of time and is emotionally draining.

I’ve moved a fair amount in my adult life though I have been in my current home for nine years. In previous moves I discarded quite a bit. I put 13 boxes of dissertation research on the side of the street hours before I learned I had been awarded a national prize for my dissertation. I have sold or given away furniture that was heavy and too hard to move anywhere else. I’ve given away books and clothes many times. My first big decluttering adventure was after I came back from sabbatical and before I moved to Florida. I put everything in storage for the year I was on sabbatical. I couldn’t believe that I paid to store some of the things that came out and back into my apartment. I also had to face what I was going to do with the things I acquired while on sabbatical. I have a clear picture in my mind of standing on Joseph and Mitzi’s back porch and having Diane Ferlatte ask me why I needed to move Fluffy anywhere. (Fluffy is the dog. His real name is Chuck and he is a puppet.) I did eventually move Fluffy, but I left or threw out quite a bit of the other things I had acquired that year.

Fast forward to about two years ago. I began realizing that my house was filling up with things that I no longer needed. Some of these things were items that had been moved over the years – the books, the dishes, the clothes, etc. I really didn’t need many of them. Maybe part of the realization came as I began to change physically. I didn’t need to hang onto clothes I thought I would never wear again. Part of it was looking at books and other things and realizing that they were from a different time in my life. I had moved to new interests and ideas. So I began clearing things out. I do have photos from the first big purge somewhere but I can’t find them on my computer so maybe I have actually purged those files as well.

I went through files of papers that I knew I would never look at or use again. I wanted simplicity. I have continued cleaning out for the past few years. Sometimes I have taken a chunk of time – spring break or my Christmas break – and concentrated on rooms or closets. More often I have taken a few files or a drawer at a time and have made decisions. Most recently I joined the Be Less with More21 day decluttering challenge to finish up my task. It turned out that a friend was also doing the challenge so we have been great encouragement to one another.

One of the things that made me feel pretty good with this challenge was what I had already done. I also honed and refined some areas, revisiting files and books in particular but also items that were tucked away in cupboards. I took a carload to TES and have given items to people as well as sold a few items. My house is much more open and feels lighter. There is room for something new to come in.

In the next day or two my house will go on the market. I don’t know how long it will take. I’m ready for a smaller space and my task of moving will be easier because I no longer have so much stuff to pack and move. I’ve become a bit ruthless in my decluttering but I have only missed one item that I got rid of and, truthfully, it was not something I used so I don’t really miss it after all.

I know this is not the way everyone wants to live. I have found openness and more freedom since I began to downsize, however. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next.